Hunger
by aaz
Summary: The BAU tracks down a killer who loves to play a cat and mouse game with his victims. Reviews are most welcome.
1. Chapter 1

_**Hi all. It has been a while. Enjoy the story and for copyright sake, a disclaimer is needed: Criminal Minds belongs to CBS. Cheers**_

**Somewhere in the city**

He ignored the blinding pain in his head as he got into his car and headed to the office. The drive was sapping his energy and he did not know why. The pain refused to go away. Why? He could not remember and he knew it was important for him to remember.

**At the office **

After putting the car in park, he just allowed his body to go into auto mode and walked towards the elevator. When he exited the elevator, he barely noticed the shocking look on the faces of those around him.

"Hotch?" Rossi approached the unit chief slowly and he looked worried, very worried in fact.

Reid, Morgan, Prentiss and JJ stood up in unison and their faces reflected the horror and shock they felt. Hotch wondered why. He kept walking and Rossi grabbed his arm to stop him from taking another step further.

"Dave, what... are you doing?" he asked, trying to shake off the tight grip on his arm. The act itself amplified the pain in his head and used his other hand to massage his throbbing head and was surprised to see his hand was covered in blood. His? How? Why couldn't he remember?

Suddenly his world tilted and everything went dark. Rossi immediately supported his unconscious friend and barked an order to call 911. Reid grabbed a blanket and ran towards Rossi as the older agent lowered Hotch gently to the ground. He covered Hotch with the blue blanket and waited anxiously as JJ telling the 911 operator over the phone to hurry up.

"My God Rossi, What happen to him?" Morgan asked. He saw the car key on the floor and suddenly dawned on him that Hotch had driven all the way to the office in his condition.

"Rossi, he's damn lucky he didn't crash his car on his way here." The older agent just looked at Morgan without saying anything. He had so many questions and the only person who could answer them was the man lying on the floor.

Prentiss kneeled besides Rossi and handed him a towel to stop the bleeding. In minutes, the towel was soaked in blood as he held it to the nasty deep gash on Hotch's left temple.

"People, why aren't you answering your phones?" Garcia asked as she walked into the bullpen looking annoyed and her grumbling immediately stopped when she saw Reid's pale face and the unconscious Hotch on the floor.

**Somewhere in the city**

A dark shadow lurked behind an abandoned building as he set his sight on his current prey. His blood lust was high especially when his last victim got away from him. He would hunt down the escaped prey soon. For now, he needed to satisfy the hunger. He was very hungry. He pounced and his victim never knew what had hit him. It was a quick kill and he had his fun.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Hope you have liked it so far. I certainly enjoy writing it. Reviews will be great, so that I can gauge how best I can proceed with this story...cheers**_

**At the office  
**  
Hotch opened his eyes and immediately regretted doing so as he winced in pain because the bright overhead light made the throbbing in his head worse. He wanted to close his eyes but a voice urged him to stay awake.

"Come on Hotch stay with me," Rossi urged him. He could see the pain in the younger agent's eyes as he struggled to focus.

The rest of the team members anxiously looked on as they waited for the paramedic to arrive. Hotch tried to sit up, but Rossi firmly held him to the ground.

"No. Hotch, you have to lie still. Help will be here soon."

"Where am I?" Hotch asked and was surprised to hear how weak he sounded.

"You are currently lying on the floor in the BAU with a very nasty head wound. Do you remember anything?"

"I don't..." Hotch suddenly had flashbacks of black shadows and a red toy car. He flinched as he tried to remember.

Garcia had a foreboding feeling things would turn for the worse and unconsciously began pulling out the pink hair of a troll doll on top of the pen which was in her tight grip.

Morgan gently asked Hotch to describe what he was remembering.

"There are shadows...many shadows. A car. I mean... a toy red car. It was on the floor. I heard a cry...no...I don't know."

"Hotch you are doing fine. Now can you recall where you were when you saw the red toy car," Morgan asked further.

The BAU unit chief gave him a blank look at first and then his face turned a shade paler. He grasped Rossi's hand with an intense fear in his eyes.

"No!no...no...no I must go. You don't understand. I must go," Hotch put up a fight to get up. Morgan and Reid immediately help Rossi to calm him down.

**Somewhere in the city  
**  
A soft cry was heard in a dark room. The door was locked and its single occupant curled up into a small ball on the floor as he tried to stay quiet. He cried silently, waiting for the monster to come back. He must be brave he told himself.

**At the BAU**

"What do you mean, you have to go Hotch?" Morgan asked after they managed to calm him down. The physical struggle had reopened the wound on his head and blood began to flow again down his cheek. Rossi immediately picked up the towel which had fallen to the floor to stop the bleeding.

"I know somebody needs me. I have to do something...If only I can remember what it is that I must do," Hotch sounded frustrated.

**Somewhere in the city  
**  
Tick tock...tick tock...the monster said as he entered the room. His captive cringed in fear when he heard the monster's voice. He closed his eyes and silently recited the prayer his mom had taught him to protect him from evil and the monster was reeked with evil. He peeked and saw the monster's shoes so close to where he was lying.

He waited for the pain to start because monsters had always inflicted pain and this monster enjoyed it.

**At the BAU  
**  
Paramedics rushed into the bullpen area and checked on their patient. Hotch looked lost and Rossi could remember the fear he saw in his friend's eyes.

Suddenly Hotch lost consciousness again. One of the paramedics quickly shone light to his eyes and she was worried of what she saw.

"Pete, we have to go now. It looks like he has a concussion," she told her partner as they lifted the unconscious agent onto a gurney.

They immediately left with Rossi followed suit and jumped into the ambulance as he didn't want his friend to be alone when he woke up.

There was unusual silence in the bullpen. Prentiss and JJ glanced at each other as they tried to figure out what had just happened. Reid stood still beside Garcia who continued pulling the troll's hairs without realising it.

"Baby girl... you can stop that now," Morgan put his hand on Garcia's arm.

"Huh...what?" said the baffled IT analysts.

"Angel, if you keep doing that, the troll will look like me. I may look good without my hair, I think the troll looks better with them though," he gave Garcia a small smile.

She looked down and startled to see that she had nearly pulled out a big chunk of the troll's pink hair and most of the strands ended on the floor and some stuck to her skirt as well as her shoes.

Morgan gave her a hug and whispered something to her ear. He let go and went to his office.

Garcia smiled and looked sad at the same time.

"What did he say, Garcia?" Reid asked.

"He said he will get the one who hurt Hotch and will help me to glue back the troll's hair too."

Those who heard Garcia's reply broke into a small smile and soon many resumed their works because they knew they had to stop psychopaths, killers and the deranged from hurting the innocents and when one of them got hurt by these monsters, it drove the agents to be a force to be reckoned with, to hunt down the culprits.

Few minutes later, Morgan walked into the bullpen and retrieved Hotch's car key from under a desk where he saw one of the paramedics had accidentally kicked it earlier.


	3. Chapter 3

**In a dark room **

He looked into a mirror and the face he saw was not his. It was never his.

"That is because you are such a wimp. A coward. A spineless useless little man who cannot even kill properly," said the face in the mirror.

"No...no...shut up...shut up. You don't know me. You know nothing. I am good at this. I can do this," said the man.

"If you are so good, how can you let him go? You are despicable."

**At the hospital **

"Dave?" Hotch started to wake up.

Rossi immediately put down the magazine he was holding and leaned forward.

"Hey you...how is that head of yours," he asked Hotch.

"Like I just have been hit in the head," he replied and grimaced in pain when he tried to turn his head to look at Rossi.

Rossi pointed to his right to a sofa and Hotch broke into a smile when he saw Jack sleeping soundly with his favourite G.I. Joe doll by his side.

"He once told me that doll is his lucky Jim," Hotch told Rossi softly so that he would not wake up his son.

"Mine, it was a baseball. Now that baseball is in a glass casing safely on my shelf," Rossi added, smiling.

The older agent then turned serious and gave Hotch the look.

"Look Dave. I have been trying since I woke up to remember. Nothing."

"You don't remember the shadows and red toy car," Rossi asked. Hotch frowned and tried hard to recall what had happened. He had flashes of images but they did not make much sense.

"Agent Hotchner, I am Dr Michael and your head scan shows no other injuries aside from that deep gash. I don't see why you cannot leave tomorrow. I will give you painkillers for the headache. We keep you here overnight for observation and will give you the discharge papers tomorrow."

"Thank you Dr," Hotch replied and started to feel sleepy.

He turned to watch his sleeping son before closing his eyes. Few seconds later, he was asleep.

Rossi could see how tired his friend was and started to leave the room to get a cup of coffee when he saw Jack had wakened up.

"Hey kiddo. Why are you awake?" "I need to go to the little boy's room, uncle Dave," said the six-year-old and began getting up from the sofa.

He walked to where his dad was lying and gently put his G.I. Joe doll besides his pillow. "Lucky Jim will look after daddy awhile, right Uncle Dave, until we come back."

"You bet kiddo. Let's go," Rossi said and smiled when Jack's little hand grabbed his.

**Somewhere in the city**

A lone figure was seen carried a green duffel bag and left it outside a police station. As the late shift clocked in, one of the officers spotted the bag.

She unzipped it and what she saw caused her to lose her dinner. The sight of a small hand clutching what looked like a red toy car.

Without checking for pulse, she knew the little boy was dead because of the cuts that nearly severed his head.

She immediately raised the alarm and within minutes dozens of police personnel and crime lab techs turned up looking for clues.

The duffle bag was sent to the coroner office. The on-duty medical examiner gently lifted the boy's small body from the bag and put him on a nearby slab.

He checked the bag when he saw something that caught his attention.

Whatever it was, the M.E. could not get fast enough to the phone.

**The next day at the BAU office **

The phone rang


	4. Chapter 4

The team gathered including Hotch who had been discharged early in the morning. JJ had informed them that they had a case.

"This is bad guys. The victim is a six-year-old boy. His name is Brian and his family reported him missing three days ago.

"He was left outside a police station ...ummm in a duffle bag."

All looked grim even Hotch looked grimmer than usual as they scrolled through the pictures downloaded into their tablets. There were several pictures of Brian with his parents and he seemed like a happy boy whose parents loved him very much. The big goofy grin of Brian struck an eerily resemblance to Jack. A cold chill went down his spine.

Then JJ turned to look at Hotch and said: "He was holding a red toy car."

Hotch felt he had just been punched in the gut. He was too shock to say anything. But his expression said volume, from horror to guilt.

"It is not your fault Aaron," Rossi told him.

"If only I could remember maybe, just maybe, he would still be alive."

"You don't know that."

"But it is possible, isn't it," Hotch snapped at the older agent and immediately exited the meeting room, heading to his office.

Morgan wanted to follow Hotch, but Rossi told him to give Hotch some space and knowing his friend, Hotch would never abandon a case, no matter how difficult it was on him.

True enough, the BAU unit chief walked into the meeting room few minutes later looking more composed and everyone noticed the steely glint in his eyes.

"Sorry about that, I should not have lashed out like that," Hotch said.

Garcia, the goofy but genius IT tech, went up to him and gave him a bear hug.

"No sir, you have nothing to apologise for being a decent human being. If this plutonic and friendly hug is out of line I don't give a damn because you are family a very important member in this family sir."

"Thanks Penelope," Hotch whispered.

"Ummmm...baby girl, you can let go of him now. I swear his face is turning blue," Morgan teased.

"He did not," Garcia let go and gave Morgan a friendly punch to the shoulder.

Everyone in the room was amused and few of them smiled resulted in the earlier tension to fizzle out.

"Reid and Garcia, both of you cross check the M.O. with past cases and pull out any that seem remotely similar."

"Of course sir. Come on handsome boy, we get to be Butch and Sundance today," Garcia pulled Reid from his chair.

"Huh?" The flustered young genius nearly fell as he tried to keep pace with Garcia.

"Morgan, you and Prentiss go to the M.E. office and Rossi and I will meet the boy's parents. JJ, be ready for the media blitz on this case. It will be crazy once the news hit national."

"Morgan before you go, did you find anything in my car?"

"The lab techs have collected all possible samples needed. Should they find anything, we will be the first to know."

"Good. Thanks."

**At the police station**

Mr and Mrs Galen thank you for coming in. This is Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner and I am SSA Rossi.

"Do you know who did this to my boy? For God sake, he is only six. Who kills a six-year-old?" Brian's devastated parents could not believe they had lost their boy.

Both Hotch and Rossi kept their silence to allow the Galen to grieve for their young child.

"I know it is hard to lose a child because I am a father myself. But anything you can tell us about the day Brian went missing will help us to get the monster that did this to your son," Hotch told the Galen.

Both shared whatever they could recall from that day.

**In a room with cracked mirrors**

"Stupid...stupid...stupid," said the lone figure softly as it rocked back and forth. Suddenly the rocking stopped. Pulling a gleaming blade from under its coat, the hunt begins. So many preys. So many to choose from. So many to kill. It will be a busy night.

"Run...run...run. I am so hungry. Hungry...hungry...hungry," the figure said to no one as it sharpened the blade, taking extra care not to nick the smooth blade.

**At the M.E. office**

The medical examiner who did the autopsy on Brian's body gave Morgan and Prentiss his report.

"The boy died from _asphyxia__. See the ligature mark here on his neck here. It looked like rope burn. The killer tried to sever his head with a knife, a very sharp one. But when the knife hit the spinal cord, it would take more than a knife to cut through it._

_"__But, that is not what I want to show you guys. Here. Look inside the bag," he urged the two agents._

_Both looked inside and Prentiss looked paler and Morgan immediately called Hotch._

_"__Hotch. We may have another victim."_

_Prentiss carefully took out a long blond hair with a blue butterfly clip still held the hair and a piece of paper together from inside the bag. _

_The note stated: "I have her."_


End file.
